equality of educational opportunity: race, gender, and special needs chapter 5 ©2012 mcgraw-hill...

Equality of Educational Opportunity:Race, Gender, and

Special Needs

Chapter 5

©2012 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/Irwin

5-2

Timeline of Events: Equality of Educational Opportunity

• 1790 - Naturalization Law• 1868 - Fourteenth Amendment• 1895 - Plessy v. Ferguson• 1923 - U.S. v. Bhagat Singh

Thind• 1924 - Native Americans granted

citizenship• 1954 - Brown v. Board of

Education of Topeka• 1964 - Civil Rights Act• 1966 - National Organization for

Women (NOW) formed• 1972 - Title IX Higher Education

Act

• 1975 - Federal regulations end gender discrimination in athletics

• 1975 - Public Law 94-142 Education for All Handicapped Children Act

• 1990 - Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

• 1997 - Amendments to IDEA• 2002 - President’s Commission

Report: Revitalizing Special Education for Children and Their Families

©2012 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.

5-3

Definition of Race

• Race is a social and legal construction.• Courts have struggled to define race.

o Takao Ozawa v. United Stateso United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind

• The U.S. Census Bureau uses personal self-identification, making race a matter of personal choice.


5-4

Takao Ozawa v. United States, 1922

“The test afforded by the mere color of the skin of each individual is impracticable, as that differs greatly among persons of the same race, even among Anglo-Saxons, ranging by imperceptible gradations from the fair blond to the swarthy brunette, the later being darker than many of the lighter hued persons of the brown and yellow races.”


5-5

U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 1923

“It may be true that the blond Scandinavian and the brown Hindu have a common ancestor in the dim reaches of antiquity, but the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences between them today.”


5-6

Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, 1868

“No state shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”


5-7

Plessy v. Ferguson:

The 1895 U.S. Supreme Court decision which determined that “equal protection” could also mean “separate but equal”


5-8

Oliver v. Michigan State Board of Education, 1974

“A presumption of segregative purpose arises when plaintiffs establish that the natural, probable and foreseeable result of public officials’ action or inaction was an increase or perpetuation of public school segregation.”


5-9

Reasons for recent increased segregation:

• Recent court decisions outlawing race as a main factor in student assignment

• Increased residential segregation• Increased role of private schools in

contributing to segregation


5-10

Second-Generation Segregation

• Second-generation segregation refers to forms of racial segregation that are the result of school practices, such as:

Tracking Ability Grouping Misplacement in special education classes

• Unequal treatment among races in integrated schools

Subtle forms of segregation Rigid racial boundaries


5-11

During its first years of activism, NOW focused on:

• Eliminating discriminatory quotas against women in college and professional school admissions

• Urging parents, counselors, and teachers to encourage women to pursue higher education and professional education

• Eliminating discriminatory practices against women in the awarding of fellowships and loans

• Investigating the problem of female dropouts


5-12

Achievements in providing equality of educational opportunity for women:

• 1972: Legal action against school systems with segregated courses in home economics and industrial arts

• 1974: More than 1,000 women’s studies departments created on college campuses

• 1975: Federal regulations to end sex discrimination in athletics• 1976: Lawsuits regarding female participation in athletics and

gender-biased hiring in school administration• 1976: Educational Equality Act• 1983: Last all-male school in Ivy League, Columbia University,

becomes co-educational• 1986: FairTest organized to counter sex bias in high-stakes testing• 1996: Virginia Military Institute and the Citadel become

coeducational.


5-13

Anti-discriminatory changes in educational programs:

• The number of female medical school graduates increased from 8.4 percent in 1969 to 34.5 percent in 1990.

• The percentage of doctoral and professional degrees awarded women increased from 14.4 percent in 1971 to 36.8 percent in 1991.

• Most discrimination in vocational programs ended.• Female participation in high school athletics increased

from 7 percent in 1972 to 37 percent in 1992 and in college athletics from 15.6 percent in 1972 to 34.8 percent in 1993.


5-14

Students With Disabilities

• The political movement for federal legislation to aid students with disabilities followed a similar path to rest of the civil rights movement.

• In Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children (PARC) v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania the court enjoined the state from excluding children with disabilities from public education and required that every child be allowed access to an education.


5-15

Disability Categories

• Autism• Deaf-Blindness• Developmental Delay• Emotional Disturbance• Hearing Impairment• Mental Retardation• Multiple Disabilities• Orthopedic Impairment• Specific Learning Disability• Speech or Language Impairment• Traumatic Brain Injury• Visual Impairment


5-16

An Individual Education Plan (IEP) includes the following:

• A statement of the present levels of educational performance of the child;

• A statement of annual goals, including short-term instructional objectives;

• A statement of the specific educational services to be provided to the child, and the extent to which the child will be able to participate in regular educational programs;

• The projected date for initiation and anticipated duration of such services;

• Appropriate objectives criteria and evaluation procedures and schedules for determining, on at least an annual basis, whether instructional objectives are being achieved.


5-17

Inclusion• The 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children

Act called for integration of children with disabilities into regular classes.o Isolation deprives disabled students from contact with

other studentso Denies access to equipment found in regular

classroomso Inclusion is believed to improve educational

achievement and social developmento It is hoped that bias will decrease with increased

interaction


5-18

Inclusion and No Child Left Behind

• 2003 regulations to the No Child Left Behind Act required that children with disabilities be included in state test systems

• Reasoning:o Positive benefits to students when included in

accountability systemso Fear that more students would be labeled

disabled in order to raise test scores


5-19

Teachers’ objections to inclusion programs:• Disabled students are moved into regular classrooms

without any support services.• Experienced teachers have never received training in

teaching students with disabilities or in teaching in an inclusive classroom.

• School districts implementing inclusion policies do not provide adequate training for general education teachers.

• Education schools do not provide prospective teachers with a basic knowledge of learning disabilities or situations they are likely to confront in inclusive classrooms.

• General education teachers are often excluded from the individualized education plan (IEP) team.

• Parents of nondisabled students worry that their children’s education will be compromised in inclusive classrooms.


5-20

Solutions for Inclusion Issues

• More education and training for experienced and future teachers

• Adequate support services for teachers in inclusive classrooms

• Teacher participation on the individualized planning team

• Education of parents about inclusive classrooms


equality of educational opportunity: race, gender, and special needs chapter 5 ©2012 mcgraw-hill...

Documents